2005 First Editions
Description 2005 is the second year of what can be referred to as cartoonish casting designs. This design trend began in 2004. For this year, it includes the Blings, Drop Tops, X-Raycers, Torpedoes and Realistix. These five segments rounded up a total of sixty original cars, many of which have become rarities in later years. Why did Mattel make these strange looking cars? Why so many? If the reason was to do something radical and different, they certainly achieve that goal. Some of those cars do pretty well on the race tracks due to their low center of gravity. Blings are cartoonish-looking with wide, blingy rims. Drop Tops are flattened, with silhouettes well below the wheel wells. X-Raycers are made of striking, fruit candy-like, colorful see-through plastic. Torpedoes are deformed, elongated, open-wheel versions of real cars, like the '71 Charger, or Hot Wheels designs like the Overbored 454. Realistix's are not deformed in any way and retain the scaled-down proportions of the real car. Looking back, Realistix seem to have been re-done more than all the other 2005 New Model segments in later years. 2005 was a big year for concept cars in the Hot Wheels lineup. Curiously there was a Ford Shelby Cobra and a GR-1 Concept on the same year. The Cobra is a modern interpretation of the old Shelby Cobra while the GR-1 is likewise, of the mythical Shelby Daytona. Other Realistix Segment concepts were the Acura HSC, Alfa Romeo Prototipo BAT-9, and Mitsubishi Eclipse Concept. Altered ("tooned") concepts included the Ford Bronco Concept (in Blings form) and Dodge Super 8 Hemi, in the Drop Tops Series. Classic American musclecars are represented by the '69 Pontiac Firebird, '69 Pontiac GTO and '69 Chevelle in tooned X-Raycers form, the '71 Charger (Torpedoes), '63 Corvette Stingray (droptops), and '67 Chevy II (Blings). European cars were represented by Ferrari (360 Modena X-Raycers and 575-GTC Realistix), Maserati (MC-12), Alfa Romeo and Mercedes-Benz G500 (Blings). In-house models were very interesting this year, characterized by the predominant absence of tampo. Favorites are Phantasm, Poison Arrow, Split Decision, Pocket Bikester and the Formula8R. 2005 was the second year of an explosion of creativity by Hot Wheels designers, no doubt assisted by computer-aided design (CAD) capabilities. Many collectors like the almost total absense of tampo in several cars. Many regret that some licensed cars, like the 1946 Cadillac/Speed Bump were only produced as deformed, cartoonish castings. For that very reason, It would not be surprising if these First Edition cars become very valuable, either individually or all together as a Model-year collection. Category 2005 First Editions } | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |} Mainline: New Models, First Editions, “New for “ – by year Category:2005 Hot Wheels Category:Hot Wheels by Series Category:First Editions